Oh good Lord, you’re getting people in the comments going “well no racism was intended, so it’s OK!”

Yeah. ‘Cause as everyone knows, the perpetrator’s intent is the only determining factor for whether something is racist or offensive. That’s why no-one cared during the ’50s and ’60s, when the segregationists insisted that the Jim Crow laws weren’t meant to imply any inferiority.

Didn’t you do a post a while ago about how people can’t seem to have senses of humor about things that are personally sensitive to them? You used the example of horrifically funny Michael Jackson pedophilia jokes as an example.

I was going to make sarcasting comments about how the black guy not wearing a fat-suit was insulting to John Candy, and fat people in general.. but then I read more of the article to make sure I wasn’t repeating the joke and caught the quote from some idiot named Rinaldo.

Yeah, that pretty much sucked the fun out of everything. It’s always dissapointing to see a professional victim in the employ of public education.

I think it’s just that for some people it’s hard to get out of their own heads. Coming from sweden I have no historical relation to blackface, and we have a very different kind of racism over here, but you know what? Even if I personally don’t feel offended and hurt, I can accept that other people might! There wouldn’t be such a hubub over this otherwise.

For some reasons, people coming out to say that this wasn’t very bad always reminds me of those bullies back in gradeschool that said that their bullying was all in good fun, and can’t you take a joke?

That other people might get hurt over something doesn’t actually make it racism. (or any other -ism for that matter) A bunch of white kids dressed up like a bunch of black guys. Screw the whole Halloween angle; there is no way that is in and of itself racist.

If the black guy involved had been wearing point-hat bedsheets, or the white guys been sporting ‘fro picks and watermelon slices/buckets of chicken, then maybe I could see where people were getting offended. But based on the story as reported, it’s a bunch of whiny idiots getting offended for headlines.

Forgetting the past isn’t necessary, but just because something used to be insulting doesn’t mean it is now or always will be. I don’t get insulted when people bite their thumb at me either.